Sunday, October 13, 2013

Feed Annapolis 5 Miler

The Feed Annapolis 5 Miler is a 5 mile charity race in Annapolis created by the Revolution church. Revolution is a Protestant evangelical non-denominational church that markets itself to people "who don't like church". Feed Annapolis is their charity wing that gets food to poor people. Of course, with food stamps, school lunches, and the rest, I'm not so sure that people are starving here. But feeding the poor should be done by private groups and individuals, not the State, so I was happy to help out, even if the entry fee seemed a bit high.

The race was on the morning of Saturday, August 17, 2013. It started at Bates Middle School, which is less than a half mile from my house, so I walked there. There appeared to be enough parking for everyone.

The volunteers and everyone else seemed reasonably pleasant and the race started without incident. The course took us around the school area, then around my neighborhood, and then through Truxtun Park, then back through my neighborhood, then through the outskirts of Murray Hill, before ending back where we started. It was a bit disappointing that the race never took us downtown. But knowing the local politics, I wasn't surprised. The downtown residents complain endlessly about every event, especially sporting ones, at the City Council meetings. The race directors may have decided that it wasn't worth the effort to get a permit for a downtown run. I don't blame them.

The course was easy enough to follow and well marked. And volunteers were at every turn so no one could get lost.

There was some food after the race. The Chick-fil-a breakfast sandwiches were decent, but sort of dry. Some catsup and/or mayonnaise and pickles would have made them better.

They encouraged people afterwards to line up and put together a box of food by walking down a long line and filling the boxes with food that was out on a table. The church members would then take that food to the poor.

I ran the race with Eric Knowles, who is also running for State Senate. Eric is a good guy. He isn't a career politician. He works for a living as a bartender. He doesn't compromise his beliefs to get elected. He is one of the few people running for office who has actually understands the proper role of government. We ran at a comfortable 9:18 per mile pace and had a good political discussion as went. Regretfully there was no beer provided after the race. We did walk to my house afterwards where we continued our political discussion and drank some beer that I had sitting around.

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